Did globalization help Vladivostok rock?

The Boston Globe profiles Russian rock band Mumiy Troll, currently on their second American tour: 

Most bands on their way to success have to face typical obstacles like dodgy record deals or squabbles among bandmates. Far fewer must deal with collapse and transformation of the social order, a crippling economic crisis, suspicious authorities, and a music market where 9 out of 10 CDs are pirated and earn the bands zero revenue.

That’s the setting Russian artists have faced since the 1990s, and where Mumiy Troll, a veteran quartet from Vladivostok, have not just survived but prospered. Since leader Ilya Lagutenko and his bandmates, childhood friends and teen rock rebels in late Soviet days, formed the current lineup in 1996, they’ve reached — and kept — arena-filling star status in one of the world’s most turbulent markets.

What Waldfogel and Ferreira suggest (Full paper here.) is that media developments like Internet and locally programmed MTV stations, rather than unleashing a tsunami of Britneys and Kanyes on the rest of the world, have allowed local artists to gain a following more easily than they could in a world where success was measured in record sales and radio plays.

Mumiy Troll, who have built their success by constantly touring and producing quirky videos, are a perfect example. International success, like what Mumiy Troll are starting to enjoy, is a much harder nut to crack. But the band seems to be following in the trail of international stars from Sweden, which is, surprisingly, the world’s largest music exporter by share of GDP: they started to write songs in English.